tavily research Skill | Agent Skills

tavily research

AI-powered deep research that gathers sources, analyzes them, and produces a cited report. Takes 30-120 seconds.

Before running any command

If tvly is not found on PATH, install it first:

curl -fsSL https://cli.tavily.com/install.sh | bash && tvly login

Do not skip this step or fall back to other tools.

See tavily-cli for alternative install methods and auth options.

When to use

You need comprehensive, multi-source analysis
The user wants a comparison, market report, or literature review
Quick searches aren't enough — you need synthesis with citations
Step 5 in the workflow: search → extract → map → crawl → research

Quick start

# Basic research (waits for completion)
tvly research "competitive landscape of AI code assistants"

# Pro model for comprehensive analysis
tvly research "electric vehicle market analysis" --model pro

# Stream results in real-time
tvly research "AI agent frameworks comparison" --stream

# Save report to file
tvly research "fintech trends 2025" --model pro -o fintech-report.md

# JSON output for agents
tvly research "quantum computing breakthroughs" --json

Options

| Option | Description | |--------|-------------| | --model | mini, pro, or auto (default) | | --stream | Stream results in real-time | | --no-wait | Return request_id immediately (async) | | --output-schema | Path to JSON schema for structured output | | --citation-format | numbered, mla, apa, chicago | | --poll-interval | Seconds between checks (default: 10) | | --timeout | Max wait seconds (default: 600) | | -o, --output | Save output to file | | --json | Structured JSON output |

Model selection

| Model | Use for | Speed | |-------|---------|-------| | mini | Single-topic, targeted research | ~30s | | pro | Comprehensive multi-angle analysis | ~60-120s | | auto | API chooses based on complexity | Varies |

Rule of thumb: "What does X do?" → mini. "X vs Y vs Z" or "best way to..." → pro.

Async workflow

For long-running research, you can start and poll separately:

# Start without waiting
tvly research "topic" --no-wait --json    # returns request_id

# Check status
tvly research status <request_id> --json

# Wait for completion
tvly research poll <request_id> --json -o result.json

Tips

Research takes 30-120 seconds — use --stream to see progress in real-time.
Use --model pro for complex comparisons or multi-faceted topics.
Use --output-schema to get structured JSON output matching a custom schema.
For quick facts, use tvly search instead — research is for deep synthesis.
Read from stdin: echo "query" | tvly research - --json

Agent Skills: tavily research

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